In classic Russian fiction the writer often conceals the exact location and even the name of a character. In any story by Chekov or Dostoyevsky, you run across memes like this: It so happened last autumn that an officer on leave, Captain N., missed his footing while stepping off the train in the town of … Read more
With the exit of effectively everyone but Bernie Sanders from the Democratic presidential race, the path to the party’s nomination has been cleared wide open for Joe Biden. It’s now one-on-one, Biden vs. Bernie, with Biden almost certain to win out. If you’re a betting man, the odds are literally and overwhelmingly on Biden—87 percent, … Read more
Super Tuesday has come and gone, effectively narrowing the Democratic Party’s presidential race for these United States down to two: septuagenarians Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, both of whom are older than their Republican opponent by a mere four or five years. We have come a long way from the days when Ronald Reagan ran … Read more
If you support Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, or Bernie Sanders, you’d better pay close attention to what they are saying about the transgender movement. If elected in November, their administration will have a direct impact on your son’s or daughter’s long-term emotional and physical health, especially if they are on the autism spectrum. Wrapped in … Read more
The Reverend Robert E. Morey of Saint Anthony Catholic Church in Florence, South Carolina, denied former vice president and leading Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden Communion during a Sunday morning Mass in late October. Rev. Morey told a local newspaper that Biden, who was in Florence for a campaign stop, was denied Communion because of … Read more
Editor’s note: this article originally appeared in the May 1988 print edition of Crisis. It has been edited for brevity. Many people have asked me what it was like to live through the nomination and hearings of my husband, Robert Bork. I usually answer that it was like being besieged in a battle where the reinforcements … Read more
Bishop Miler Magrath (Maolmhuire Mag Raith) of Ireland (1523-1622) wrote his own epitaph for the tomb in Cashel in which he was finally laid in his one-hundredth year. The syntax is convoluted as was his life: “Here where I am placed I am not. I am not where I am not. Nor am I in … Read more
Speaking at the University of Notre Dame in October 2016, just a few weeks before a national election that seemed sure to put a second Clinton in the White House, I noted that [Q]uite a few of us American Catholics have worked our way into a leadership class that the rest of the country both … Read more
In a recent interview in America (October 12, 2015), in which the editor of the flagship Jesuit journal, Fr. Matt Malone, S.J., sat down with the vice president of the United States, Joseph R. Biden Jr., a series of soft balls were thrown and, to no one’s surprise, every blessed one was slammed right out … Read more
For a long time, Catholics have struggled with the question of whether it is appropriate for Catholic politicians to draw upon Church teachings in the conduct of public life. The Church has a lot to say about the way laws are made and executed. Are Catholic politicians required to act on these principles when crafting … Read more
The past four years have witnessed a battle between different generations of Catholics in public life—Generation X Catholics have taken a very different path from Baby Boomer Catholics and those born before the boomers. Generation X Catholics have emerged prominently in the Republican Party. Many who were mentioned this year on Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential short … Read more
Winston Churchill deserves the credit for replacing the word “lies” with the “fabrication of terminological inexactitudes.” No one wants to be accused of telling a lie. Churchill’s ingenious phrase may mean the same thing as a lie, but it has considerably less sting. By the time the accused figures out what these words mean, the … Read more
I continue to read more and more from Catholics upset with Joe Biden’s defense of the Obama Administration’s HHS mandate in the vice-presidential debate. I got news for you. It’s worse than you think. During the debate, Biden’s opponent Paul Ryan challenged the HHS mandate: “Look at what they’re doing through Obamacare with respect to … Read more
After Mass on Sunday, North Carolina pastor Rev. Andre Mangango was approached by a man who, a day earlier, was introduced as Mitt Romney’s running-mate for the 2012 presidential election. “I am Representative Paul Ryan and this is my son,” the man said. Ryan reportedly attended the 7:30 mass that morning with a group of … Read more
John F. Kennedy delivered a memorable speech in the presidential campaign of 1960, proclaiming the absolute separation of church and state. His words still reverberate among American Catholics, as we saw during the primary season of 2012 when Senator Rick Santorum said Kennedy’s speech made him “throw up.” Naturally, this got our attention and made … Read more
Here’s an instant classic from British television on Wednesday. Two news anchors were covering Joe Biden’s press conference when they noticed the smudge on his forehead. It begins at .27…
Joe Biden’s voting record on abortion in the United States Senate is likely to cause heartburn for two groups of people: ardent pro-choicers and Catholic bishops. Biden is a Catholic; and yet for the last ten years, according to the National Right to Life Committee, he has voted the “wrong” way 88.5 percent of … Read more